Sirun Chen

Track: Stand-alone

Tell us about yourself:

I am a second year student in the Public Health Graduate Program with a concentration of Health Statistics. My career goal is to raise people’s awareness of the benefits of healthy behaviors. I am planning to use my statistical skills to analyze people’s behavior and know what the population should be focused on.

Your education:

I earned my Bachelor from Purdue University with double major in Public Health and Environmental Health.

Your vision:

Since infectious diseases are no longer the most influential threats to people’s health, the focus of public health programs has shifted to changing people’s behaviors not only to prevent diseases from happening, but also to optimize the quality of people’s health and living styles. I am passionate about these new public health perspectives. A public health degree will provide me with the fundamental knowledge about the natural science behind people’s health, the social science behind human behavior as well as the communication skills so that I can convey what I leant about public health to people effectively.

Why Purdue:

I like the Public Health Graduate Program’s course design. It provides us a solid foundation of knowledge on public health and equips us with practical skills that prepare us for future jobs. I also like the small class size because it promotes opinion exchange between lecturers and classmates. In our classroom, we can learn not only from textbooks and lecturers, but also from each other.

Your advice:

Be more connective with classmates. It is beneficial to learn form study groups. While communicating with my classmates, it not only consolidates what I had learnt, but also helps me to gain new information and stimulate new thoughts.